Many Russian investors are excited about digital currency. A survey conducted in August 2021 by the forex market found that around 77% of those surveyed said their “most prospective” investments are digital currencies, including BTC, LTC and ETH.

About 8.8% of respondents preferred gold as the best investment and 14% preferred “familiar national currencies”.

In addition, around 77% of those surveyed were also considering investing in digital currency in the near future, while 23% of those surveyed said they had never used digital currency.

In Russia, payment in digital currency is still prohibited and the government has no plans to change this anytime soon. The Russian government has indicated that there are no plans to ban digital currency trading, unlike China, but the ban on digital currency payments continues.

What Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister has to say

Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev stressed that Russian citizens will still be able to buy and trade digital assets like Bitcoin.

“Russian citizens may have an open wallet outside the Russian Federation, but if they operate within the Russian Federation, then they will be subject to bans, I think, for the foreseeable future, due to our financial sovereignty, ”Moiseev said.

The deputy finance minister added that lawmakers have yet to properly define digital currencies and blockchain technology in Russia’s civil code. The Russian government is skeptical of accepting Bitcoin as legal tender because they fear it will have a negative impact on the country’s economic and financial system.

Russia’s position contrasts with that of China, where financial and regulatory institutions have repeatedly issued anti-digital currency statements and policies. More recently, the People’s Bank of China declared all digital currency transactions in the country illegal, and before that, minors in several provinces fled in the face of repression of their operations.

However, some Russian officials have claimed that creating a digital ruble would not have the same financial risks as digital currencies. According to the chairman of the State Duma committee on financial markets, Anatoly Aksakov, a digital currency of the central bank of Russia could be a integral part of national regulations by 2024.

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